It was launched on Windows in 2003 - arriving on the Mac in 2010 - and has since grown to a user base of over 150.
Is It Good To Get A For Steam Download For MacIf the resolution of the host display is set in-game to the same as the client, that's that much less work the client has to do.Steam is the best thing to happen to non-console, non-mobile gaming in a couple of decades. Click the Install Steam on the top right of the screen. On the next page, click Install Steam (make sure the Apple logo is next to the button, the browser should have automatically detected you’re on a Mac) When the Steam download for Mac is finished, click on steam.dmg.Check out the new releases, indie hits, casual favorites and everything in between. Over 1,100 games are available to purchase, download, and play from any computer. Steam is set apart from similar services primarily by its community features, completely automated game update process, and its use of in-game functionality. It is used to distribute a large number of games and related media entirely over the Internet, from small independent efforts to larger, more popular games. Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation.Maybe they should stop offering the cheap deals and use the extra cash to provide a better platform instead - do it the Apple way…Steam is not a mac-like app, and in fact isn't even a terribly good Windows app, the DRM is very restrictive in spite of the initial impression that it isn't as restrictive as most (see below), but there's just no way to not be happy that Valve is bringing there games to us, as well as other developers. The app also has a tendency to believe there are updates available despite not having had any internet access that could have alerted it.Add on to this the often excruciatingly-slow responses to Support requests, and you've got reasonably-priced games let down by a terrible client and support platform. The only way to restore functionality is to move the whole desktop to a location with Internet access - annoying and frustrating. The Internet isn't as ubiquitous as Valve would have us believe, and when it is there it isn't always accessible (high costs, slow speeds, unreliable connection etc.) ATM my desktop has no Internet connection, and now that Steam has "forgotten" I chose to be Offline (because I knew it wouldn't have an Internet connection for the foreseeable future) I can no longer launch the app at all. Its major flaw is that it tends to forget that you've chosen to be Offline, and will ask you to connect to the net and log in before allowing you access to your purchased software. This review is purely for the client software……Which is not that great.On the Xbox we can have multiple profiles on one Xbox, each with their own save(s) and their own sets of achievements, and if we buy a download game for it, all the profiles on that Xbox can play them. It's a nuisance to buy anything with Steam.On top of all that, Steam comes across as an attempt to be something like the Xbox, but it's DRM is more restrictive and that's highly disappointing. Worse, if you get 6 pages in, then click on an app to read about it and then click the back arrow, you don't end up on page 6, you end up back on page 1! That's not a good way to encourage use of your application.Also that you can't paste into the password field (or any other field) is another way to discourage purchases. You can't just scroll through the list. It shows you 10 (or some number) of games at a time and you have to click to go to the next page. The games are great.One thing I dislike about the Steam client is it has a really lousy way of browsing games. I may give it another try when they've significantly cleaned up the bugs, given users real management, and written an actual MAC NATIVE interface for their app (this is the part I'm most disappointed in - it's really pretty piss-poor, lazily written in AIR when doing a native app would have been no more difficult - it's hard to believe an app this buggy was privately beta-tested!).I've been looking forward to Steam for Mac for weeks now, and I have to say that so far I've been disappointed.Firstly, it's an Adobe AIR app. Yes, they'll probably clean that up at some point. That's just my preference).I particularly didn't enjoy the bugginess of the Steam app (thanks for nothing AGAIN, Adobe!) and the forced storage in my Documents folder. When I clicked "remember password", where does it store it? Not in the Keychain, I have no idea, and I bet it's storing it somewhere in plaintext.Conclusion: slow, broken, possibly insecure, and violates most OS X conventions.Anyone have some insight into how to completely UNinstall Steam and Portal?I downloaded them both (since you need a game to really test this app), found both to be sluggish on my system (love the way they don't bother to tell you the system requirements till AFTER you have downloaded the game), don't like AIR apps, don't like the Steam interface AT ALL, and Portal was (IMHO) lame (I'd be much more into something like Torchlight. Even basic functionality like copy/paste doesn't work. It stopped half-way through and hung, so I had to force-quit it.The UI is horrendous. A bigger problem is that all game data is saved to the ~/Documents directory and there is no apparent way to change this. Is this really on-demand gaming?Steam is set to auto-run at startup by default, which is pretty ballsy, but at least you can easily turn this off. Maybe it'll be done by the time I get home. I don't know why, but I resumed and went to work. This morning Portal still hadn't downloaded because it was suspended for some reason. It took me a few tries to figure out how to download Portal (though that could be my own failing) but when I did I needed to restart the app to 'enable the update'? What does that even mean? It then crashed on me twice while downloading and browsing the store simultaneously so I just left it and went to bed. Adobe after effects free download for mac os xTrying to play it just brings up another tiny modal window that seemingly does nothing - but hey, I've given up 400MB of my disk so far for this!All content is being downloaded to a "Steam Content" folder in ~/Documents, instead of to ~/Library where it belongs - this is going to screw with a bunch of people's backup strategies to be sure. Seriously, after trying to install Portal several times and just getting a blank screen (web screens for user interface - the cheap and shitty way out of UI design!), I finally checked my game library and there it was. Most actions (such as installing, etc) either have no feedback at all or pop up little dialog boxes that steal focus from other applications. Minimizing, flashing windows) are everywhere. Windows-esque references (e.g. What a piece of crap.It's extremely slow and horribly non-native and unintuitive. And on top of it all, I never managed to actually load a game (Portal), so all of the frustration of using this abomination of a system has been for nothing. I'm happier deleting it entirely than dealing with this awful steaming heap. The Documents folder is sacrosanct, you asshats - put your application support files in, I don't know, "~/Library/Application Support/Steam"?Crap like this has no business being on the Mac.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRoland ArchivesCategories |